


Perhaps Tonight Bravery Can Be Forgiven

by Thelabyrinthofingrainedwords



Series: Travesty: Despondence Tucked Beneath A Bitter Wrath [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Godrics hollow, Hogsmeade, Other, The Battle of Hogwarts, dennis creevey - Freeform, dumbledores army
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3287288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelabyrinthofingrainedwords/pseuds/Thelabyrinthofingrainedwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dennis learned the hard way how difficult it was to breathe in your brother's oxygen. How a red and black robe with too-short sleeves were a mockery. He learned that neither red or black was the shade of Lucifer's eyes but the chipped grey of stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perhaps Tonight Bravery Can Be Forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> "The tomb was a slab of grey, rough stone though was eerily lovely. Dennis himself had picked it out and had supervised the funeral ceremony. It wasn't too long ago and his parents had thought that it would be best for him to be distracted from his mourning his brother. Dennis had chose not to tell them that it had done the opposite. He watched the shovels and the way the light hit it and thought of Colin's camera locked inside his Hogwarts chest at home. He offered the grave-diggers some drinks and thought of the hot chocolate Colin would serve to him and himself on cold winter nights, so late into night even the Carrows had fallen asleep. He would supervise and think with a numb, bandaged heart that Colin deserved so much more, so much less. Colin didn't deserve to need to a grave."

Harsh winds and muted whispers rushed against his body as the boy's dragging footsteps marked snow in its regular pattern. He let his mind wander a bit, uncaring that he wasn't paying attention to where he was going. He had travelled this route far too many times to not have memorized it. He had always had a knack for that, memorizing techniques and routes and recognizing what was familiar.

Despite the hollow silence that filled the air, his ears strained to hear the quiet echoes of the familiar, eager voice. Not long after, an image squeezed it's way into being and consumed his thoughts as if it was a screen.

It was the image a lanky blonde haired boy in a muggle flannel that reached just past his elbows. In the background were tall, dark pillars and beams of multicoloured light. 

In a voice too high for his age the blonde said "Dennis! Dennis, look! I finally took a picture of Cho's patronus! Merlin, when we dip it in the potion its going to look bloody spectacular," holding up a bulky muggle camera.

The cobblestone street turned to gravel but the silence still stayed. Dennis barely glanced at rickety wooden sign saying 'Godric's Hollow'. Dusk had just fallen and the whole town seemed to be having a restless sleep. But Dennis knew better. Somewhere in the shadows one of his anxious brethren would be staring at the statue or at the decimated cottage down the street. Gratitude and sorrow blossoming in her chest. Another would be reading Rita Skeeter's lies with his wand clutched underneath his cloak and murmuring hexes underneath his breath. While he would be reliving the past year in his head and opening the cemetery's creaky gate.

He was kneeling in front of the overstuffed armchair in the Gryffindor common room watching the same boy whose eyes were the same as his. It was quiet, but not the comfortable kind. He knew that it was only like this because somewhere Ginny, Neville and Luna were being punished for rebellion for protecting some first and second years from the cruciatus curse during lunch. (Perhaps, this time, they would escape to somewhere better than their old homes.) But he forced himself to pretend he didn't know. He wasn't one of the 'claws who made knowledge kneel, just another gryff' who had to learn the difference between courage and recklessness.

His brother was detaching a scroll from their shared owl, Byron, then trying to quiet down the owl's hoots and screeches. For once, his eyes smiled along with his mouth as he unfurled the dirty scroll.

"Is it from Hannah, Colin?" He heard himself ask.

Colin nodded quickly, still smiling because of the seventh year hufflepuff. Dennis had stayed quiet for the rest of the night, although was technically early morning. Partly because he was drowsy and frightened of being caught by the Carrows for staying up past curfew, and partially because he just wanted to enjoy his brother's happiness. His brother who had still smiled and grinned and laughed, but those were for the stuttering children who thought Hogwarts was still not rotting. When no one else payed attention, he would let his eyes wander, frantic and anxious. Trying to think of a better way to make to convince Amycus that they were halfbloods whose wizard father had been a squib. But right now his eyes smiled, not much, but enough.

Dennis could hear his heartbeat inside his chest and pounding in his throat. He fumbled a bit to latch the gate again and felt the cool, soft petals of the lilacs he was holding brush his elbow. Once he had succeeded he walked the rest of the route. Although a bit slower, a bit clumsier and a bit more painfully. Most of the headstones were made of stone but the few of marble reflected the moonlight and made the graveyard a bit more eerie. He was heading to the 'C' section.

They were in the Great Hall, watching with stiff stances and virulent glares as Pansy Parkinson screamed for Harry to be traded as sacrifice. Dennis hated her so much this year for the way she looked at anyone other than her non-prejudiced 'friends'. Even though it was he who had witnessed each of her hesitant glances at her ferret death-eater boyfriend and he who had seen her worn the same black dress robes for an entire week. As if she were at a funeral. 

The prefects rushed to lead the underage students to safety but he felt a presence beside him vanish. He felt dread when he turned his head to see the almost-gone pile of blond hair and a whispered apology in his ears. 

'Colin' he had thought, 'not my brother.'

The tomb was a slab of grey, rough stone though was eerily lovely. Dennis himself had picked it out as well as had supervised the funeral ceremony. It wasn't too long ago and his parents had thought that it would be best for him to be distracted from mourning his brother. Dennis had chose not to tell them that it had done the opposite. He watched the shovels and the way the light hit it and thought of Colin's camera locked inside his Hogwarts chest at home. He offered the grave-diggers some drinks and thought of the hot chocolate Colin would serve to him and himself on cold winter nights. So late into night even the Carrows had fallen asleep. He would supervise and think with a numb, bandaged heart that Colin deserved so much more, so much less. Colin didn't deserve to need to a grave.

Somehow while he was thinking his footsteps had sounded again and had taken to a far less taken though ingrained route. He walked absently, and a bit anxiously through the grey-slab sections and unwillingly found himself in the 'P' section. A familiar formless anger rose in his stomach, his throat choked on bile. But not at the owners of the tomb, but at a boy with ivy eyes and hair as wild and dark as night. Some days he wondered when the resentment had started to grow, or maybe it didn't. Maybe it was just a rage that had started with his forefathers and had blew in languid combustions from the night he stared at his brother's lifeless eyes. At Hannah Abbott's shaking body and firmly set jaw, a wailing fury in her eyes. When he began to blame stupid bloody Potter for unknowingly making Colin stay. Or maybe it started long before that, on autumn nights with cooling tea on over stuffed arm chairs and listening to Fred and George on the radio. Maybe it started when Dennis had a foreign sensation growing in his stomach over the attention his brother gave to Harry compared to his own flesh, his own blood.

Hogsmeade was bustling and it had just struck noon. With the taste of butterbeer lingering on their tongues the Creevey brothers set out for the quieter parts and alleys in the town for some rare time to talk. Dennis would have thanked the Carrows for allowing the students to keep this one small pleasure but the hatred towards them ran too deep that even a 'thank you' would sound sarcastic.

'Which,' Dennis mused 'would have been a given.'

He had been spacing out for the last several minutes and had been torn from his trance to find his brother talking about the rumour of the Golden Trio's supposed horcrux (at this word both Colin and Dennis felt a chill run down their spine) hunt. When he had finished his ramblings Dennis was quiet for a moment until he voiced the question that had long since started bruning his throat raw. He took a slightly shuddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut as to not see his brother's expression.

"Colin... I-I just wanted to ask. Why are you so infatuated with Harry?" (Somewhere in the back of Dennis' mind he noted how back then he called Potter, 'Harry')

This time it was Colin's turn to become quiet. After a rather long pause where only the shuffling of their feet on gravelly pavement had been heard, he responded. "Why do you ask?"

An blazing fury overtook Dennis and he had to refrain himself from shouting. "Because Colin. He left you and us and everone. He's a dastard. He left us here with blood Snape as a headmaster and the Carrows as our bloody abusers. He founded the DA for Merlin's sake! He should be here teaching us, he should show some Gryffindor bravery! That we're fighting something-someone that can actually have a chance at being defeated! Colin, he abandoned us!"

He was breathing hard, his arms taught with tension and his hands so sore. One was clutching a handful of hair and the other in a tight fist. Colin stared at him bleakly. The tension and silence that hung between the two boys was at it's zenith. After minutes of staring and unsaid words, Colin spoke. Looking straight ahead and purposely avoiding his younger brother's eyes he began.

"Do you remember Elementary school Dennis? The muggle school we used to go to. When I was in the fourth year and papa had just lost his job. Somewhere halfway through the year we spent a day or two without food and had washed our clothes in the stream a couple miles away. You had been sick that day, a Saturday so I went out and washed both of our clothes without you. I saw Harry there. I saw him a lot between classes though, only his hair because his head was down quite often. We didn't know but it was his last year there, the next year he would be going to Hogwarts.

He was eating some smushed cake with his hands dirty and his glasses still only together from dry tape. He didn't see me at first but eventually he did. I think he might have remembered me. Listened to the rumours at school about papa. Or maybe he listened to the rumbling and growling of my stomach. He gave me the rest of the cake. There was still quite a bit left and he did it wordlessly. He gathered some clean napkins and put it real gently into my hands. Do you remember me brining it home? 'Finally we had some food to eat' I had thought.

Harry had a bruise on his arm on his arm on Monday. He claimed it was from a fall down the stairs but I had seen that fat cousin of his-Dudley I think his name was-threatening him that he'd make his Dad whip him if he did that again. When I came to Hogwarts and heard stories about the boy-who-lived I was thrilled. I admired him. Sweet Godric he became my hero in three hours! When I recognized Harry, I was so grateful. I had never thanked him for giving us food, for taking a beating for it. But when Luna told me that he was the also the boy-who-lived, I remembered the cake and his kindness and thought more about the abused orphan than the hero. He was like us, troubled, broken, but still fixable."

Colin kept looking straight and eventually so did Dennis.

A large, rough hand placed itself on Dennis's shoulder and a familiar voice spoke. "Dennis?"

The voice was raspy and strained though high enough that it could be recognized as a teen. He turned around and found him staring into Potter's ('no Harry's'-'no Potter's') eyes. The other boy glanced at the lilacs clutched in his hands.

"Is-...Is Colin buried here too." Though it was more of a statement than an answer.

Dennis was silent. The stood there for a while, trying to decipher the emotions hidden or displayed in the other's eyes. Harry's eyes reminded Dennis of a little first year's eyes.One he met at a late night after coming back from the Hospital Wing to find a green and black robed clad little girl clutching a bleeding arm to her chest.

Slowly, since he had sprained his ankle in Transfiguration (thanks to some 'Puff prat) Dennis had limped towards her. Once he had sat down on the bench next to her she had spoke.

"Leave me alone. I shouldn't be associating with you filth."

Though her tone was half-hearted. In reply he had asked her if she was okay, albeit slightly coolly. She didn't answer. Finally after moments of not obeying her command she lifted her head to glare him into leaving. It didn't quite work though. Dennis didn't feel the slight bit threatened. More pitying than threatened truthfully. Her eyes were so very afraid, so vulnerable. Though those emotions were masked by quite a lot of pureblood forced pride. He remembered thinking only one thing through her glaring.

'A child should be protected, whether they be spitting or stuttering or stagnant.'

Harry's eyes reminded Dennis of the little Slytherin. The progress was slow but steadily the bile in his throat disappeared. Through the stare-off he thought the same thing. Harry was only a child. Vulnerable and brave and afraid.

That night Lily and James Potter's graves were decorated with not only roses and lilies but lilacs.


End file.
